It seems that the stability depends on the user. Everyone has different computing habits, and some people's habits tend to make the computer unstable. I've seen this on both Macs and PCs. It's worse on a computer that is used by multiple people. Since I've switched to Windows XP, I've noticed that it's incredibly more stable then previous versions of Windows. Of course, this can change depending on what third party utilities you install. Most of the instability in Windows is because of poor programming of third party apps, it's not the fault of Windows itself. You're bound to get crappy programming sometimes with so many apps available on the internet.
As far as affordability goes, I would definitely go with a custom built PC, but I wouldn't go with a major manufacturer. Me and my family members have ordered several custom PCs from http://www.acicomputerstore.com (go to the "configurator"), and they've always been top notch (they do assembly and burn-in before they ship them). Just recently I got a new PC from there for $1300 with the following specs: - Case with 300W power supply - Gigabyte mother board with front USB 2.0 ports - Athlon XP 2400 (runs at 2.0 GHz, and is as fast as a Pentium4 2.4 GHz) - 1 GB 266 DDR RAM - 80 GB ATA 133 IDE hard drive (7200 rpm) - DVD-R/RW superdrive (Toshiba) - Galaxy GeForce4 video card (AGP 2x/4x) with 64 MB DDR video RAM - Win XP Pro - floppy drive - cheap sound card and speakers If you dropped the superdrive, upgraded the video card to an 8x AGP card with more memory, and used a Pentium 4 at 2.4 or 2.54 GHz (to take advantage of the faster front side bus speeds), you could get a blazing system for around $1500. I wouldn't go for a 3 GHz processor because they're still very expensive. That's the best of both speed and cost. Charlie Fiskeaux II Media Designer The Creative Group www.cre8tivegroup.com 859/858-9054x29 [To remove yourself from this list, or to change to digest mode, go to http://www.penworks.com/lingo-l.cgi To post messages to the list, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Problems, email [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Lingo-L is for learning and helping with programming Lingo. Thanks!]
